Polite Dissent

Dies the Fire is set in the Pacific Northwest after a mysterious catastrophe has wiped out almost all technology. Electronic equipment no longer functions. Gunpowder to no longer works. Steam engines can’t build up enough pressure.

Juniper Mackenzie and her fellow Wiccans escape the chaos of the city and set up a colony in her family’s old mountain cabin. Their group is prosperous and attracts more and more people to their land.

Meanwhile, Mike Havel is an ex-Marine and a pilot for a small charter airline. When the “Change’ hits, he was flying the Larsson family over Idaho. He manages to bring the plane down safely (mostly) and does his best to lead the family to safety. Along the way, the group picks up more and more people and ends up becoming a formidable cavalry war band.

Not everyone has taken the change so well. Many people go mad and many more revert to savagery. In Portland, a self-styled king has set up a brutal fiefdom that is rapidly expanding into the surrounding countryside. It’s not long before his minions come into contact with both Juniper’s people and Mike’s war band.

Dies the Fire is projected to ne the first book of a trilogy. It has a definite ending, although enough plot threads are left for further books. This novel is loosely connected to Stirling’s “Nantucket” series. In those books, the island of Nantucket is thrown back to prehistoric times. This novel tells what happens to the rest of the world after that incident. Some of the character’s last names are familiar, so I wonder if they are supposed to be related?

As to be expected from S.M. Stirling, this is a very good book. It shares the “self reliant men and women surviving and even prospering in a world gone mad” theme common to many of his novels. While I don’t think it is as good as Conquistador or The Peshawar Lancers, it is still much better than most books out there and I recommend it without reservation.

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One of the acknowledgements in the beginning of the book was to Heather Alexander, one of my favorite filk/folk singers. Several of her songs can be found in novel.

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Links:

• S.M. Stirling’s site
• Heather Alexander’s site